


Legends never remember the should be

by XimenaWood



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Major character death - Freeform, again kind of, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 12:42:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9072187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XimenaWood/pseuds/XimenaWood
Summary: Legends are nice. They tell us stories of long time pass, but they never remember the should be, the what could have been.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, this has been in my head all week and can't get it out sooo here you go. Also I don't have a beta so forgive any fault.
> 
> I do not own Merlin

Legends, most of the time, are full of crap. Scratch that, Legends are a third of half-truths, a quarter of real, and half of shit. Legends remembers the heroes, perfect and with no past but what happens in the story, and villains, all evil and not a centimeter of light in them.

Legends don’t remember what could have been, what should have been. 

Nimueh never met her mother. She died in the night, moments after giving birth to her. Maybe that should have been the omen, the sign. Evil is born in blood, in death. 

The witch was raised in a small village, on the border of Camelot. A witch raised by a sorcerer, not a powerful one, but a kind one. And a wise one. Once Ector saw how powerful his ward- his daughter in all but blood- truly was, he send her to the Isle of the Blessed, to be trained, to be taught, so that one day Nimueh may be a force of the Old Religion. 

It wasn't called the Old Religion then though, the name, however, it had been given in the beginning is forgotten now, burned out of the mind of men and women, magic and non-magic, immortal and mortal, beast and being, burned out by a king scared of his own mistake. 

And it is with this king that Nimueh’s story truly starts. 

Trained, and taught, many years later Nimueh decided to visit the cities of Albion, the small ones, the poor ones, the rich ones, and the big ones, without forgetting all the Druid camps along the way. Already a High Priestess at her young age, she found a comfort in helping others. Making crops grow quicker, be bigger, in blessing children, in teaching young ones,in helping great warriors fight magical beasts, and advising Kings and queens alike. 

One day while she was in Camelot Nimueh was approached by the king. 

Uther Pendragon wanted a son, needed one, and he was ready to pay any price. That was a lie. The High Priestess explained to him the price, the cost, what he could lose. But neither king nor queen would be moved. And she, the witch, perform what was needed to bring life into this world that was not born of nature, but of magic. 

Months later Nimueh yelled herself mute in the large hall of her home, surrendered by the bodies of her teachers, of her friends, hearing the cries of her kind as they burned, drowned, and hanged. 

Uther Pendragon had lied. He was not ready to pay the price. 

Nobles are such fools, thinking magic cares about ranks and power and birth. Uther had known a life would be taken for the birth of his son, he just hadn't know it would be his queen. Foolishly the young king had thought it would be some peasant, some commoner, the realms had thousands of them, what would one less do? But magic doesn't care what color you're blood runs, and it does not take orders. 

But the Old Religion is not one to care what is happening in the world of the living and no matter what the world decided, whether it liked magic or not, a prophecy must be. So in the dark of the night, surrender by stars and snow in a small village just outside of Camelot, a peasant woman gives birth to a boy, only seasons after the Great Purge begins, and moons after the last dragonlord leaves her home.

This boy would come to be named Merlin.

What Merlin never learned about his birth was of the woman that was present in the small house he would grow up in the day of his birth. A thin woman, with sad eyes, and a quick smile, and a quicker temper. A woman with black hair, and the bluest eyes Hunith had ever seen. A woman that appeared days before the birth. Hunith never told her son of this woman, who had come to the village at night starving and freezing. And who had saved her life, with her gold eyes when Hunith was about to die moment after giving birth. 

Years later in Camelot this same woman stared at her kin in the eye for the first time, and while Kara observed the prince's manservant, Nimueh searched his face for resemblance of the man she had been searching the day she stumble upon Ealdor-she has only missed him by nine months-. In those seconds Nimueh mourned and keep going. All in the matter of moments, in a hallway, in a palace, in a Kingdome that would have them both dead, both there for reason that went above their lives, but both on different sides of the battle field. And so in that hallway where she had once walked to give life to a king, a High Priestess mourned the family that never was and smiled.

Merlin never learned why, he merely a boy, could defeat a High Priestess. He was of course the most powerful warlock to ever live, but still green in battle. 

Because in that moment where Nimueh waited for the lightning, a daughter learned why she never meet her father, a sister learned why she was a sister. Because her father was a slave of the Old Religion-just like his children would be- and she was one of the gift he had given it. She and her brothers.

Nimueh was many things: a High Priestess, a witch, a ward, a village girl, a daughter, a sister, a giver of life, and an omen of a great purge. But most of all a peon. Like all her blood.

Nimueh died at peace, and yet still she mourned. Mourned for the girl she had been, but more than for her she mourned for the boy in front of her, for the man he would become. She mourned for the small Druid boy’s mother she had not saved, for the boy she had watched given to a man, that would raise him as his own. She mourned for the men her brothers would become.

And she raged, for it was all she knew now a day. She raged for the innocence that was and would be lost, so that a prophecy could be done. She raged for the deaths that had and would come. She raged for her brother, because they never would, they never would know the crimes that had befallen them, the future -destiny, fate- that had been forced upon them. 

And she died.

With her died the knowledge. For not even Balinor knew. Knew of his daughter with his black hair and how she had once had his smile before anger controlled her. He would know his son, -his eldest son not his eldest child-, with his black hair and almost with his pale eyes and his forgiveness, he would not know however that his son had killed his daughter. Balinor would never learned of his youngest, of the Druid boy that inherited his black curls and pale eye, and his wisdom and patience, would never know that his son became a knight before destiny and rage screwed him over. 

Only Nimueh knew and with her the knowledge died.

But so did the dream, of family, of happiness, of acceptance, of teaching her brothers the Old Ways, of a beautiful family. 

The Old Religion didn't care for dreams, three birth from Balinor the dragonlord were needed and three birth he gave them, unknowingly. Three magic users destined to hate and ruin and distrust each other. A bringer of death, a kinslayer, and a bane. A High Priestess, the greatest warlock to ever live, and a Druid knight. A village girl, a village boy, and a Druid. 

Only one in the three name will be remembered for each, but no legend will remember the family that never was.

**Author's Note:**

> There! Nice and neat. Did you like? Yes? Great leave a Kudos and a comment please. You didn't like it? Still leave a comment.


End file.
